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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22876312">sleeping stars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru'>LocketShoru</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in kismet marcescence [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(they're 17), Angst, Established Relationship, Hero Corruption, M/M, Offscreen smut, Pisces Albafica's POV, Purple Prose, Slight underage, Spectre-Sympathetic Pisces Albafica, Technically major character death, in that he's thinkin about his own mortality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:46:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22876312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Albafica wants to hate himself for running, for whose hand he was taking with him, for swearing up to his oaths like he was supposed to. He can't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in kismet marcescence [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sleeping stars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The origin story, was gonna be written today but then my laptop was like 'fuck you how about I die two hours into a six hour flight' so I guess that happened. I'll deal w/ it tomorrow or after midterms, idk my dudes.<br/>Also happy birthday Albafica. You were gonna get something happier, but my laptop says fuck you to both of us. Sorryyyyy. :p</p><p><i>Note:</i> When IKM is finished, all of the supposed-oneshots that are chapters will be shifted over to LocketShoruOLD, and then one singular fic titled In Kismet Marcescence will be uploaded with all the chapters in chronological order. Keep that in mind for now, I'll edit this when that fic happens.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            It… wasn’t ideal. Not in the slightest. And honestly, it felt almost ridiculous, that after everything, this was their downfall. They couldn’t stay here. They were so far from being able to stay here that if it weren’t for their injuries, they would be running right about now.</p><p>        	The teenager in the bed beside him shifted in his sleep, muttering some sort of groaning noise and rolling over. He glanced over, alarm tensing his every muscle that wasn’t already in agony. He couldn’t have slept, not with so much restless energy shivering up and down his spine every five seconds. Minos made a noise in his sleep, clinging to the pillows. Albafica leaned over and pressed his palm gently to his forehead, praying that he would stay asleep for another few minutes, that he wouldn’t rise and start panicking.</p><p>        	The last thing either of them needed was panic, and he was so far out of his comfort zone and so deep into panic that he’d stopped feeling anything but a numb sort of calmness. It didn’t help that he had an arrow most of the way through his calf that he wasn’t really able to do anything about. He wasn’t a healer, and the only healer he knew wouldn’t help him for this. He knew better. Somehow, it always came down to this, and he knew they’d ride at dawn.</p><p>        	At dawn, their lives would be over. There wasn’t even a way around it, otherwise he would have found it by now. There was nothing but death in their future now, so very much like the tower they had taken refuge in for the night. What was worse, really? The ride at dawn that would have them ran to ground and hunted like prey, or the wolves of the night who were always so very hungry for injured teenagers who couldn’t run any farther?</p><p>        	He wanted to say it was cruel. Wasn’t it? It couldn’t be, no; this was all his fault and he knew that, and he’d been cursing himself out for his own stupidity ever since he’d taken Minos’ hands and ran the first time. He should’ve known they never would’ve been able to stop once they’d started. It really was his own fault, and he still thought it was cruel of the others to hunt him down for it. He deserved it, and he knew it, but he still refused to think that Minos did.</p><p>        	The boy had taught Albafica so much in such a short span of time, and he wasn’t sure how he could have done it. All he’d ever done was smile, laugh, recite lines of a few badly-written and homemade poems, and leave the door open. It was always Albafica who had followed, and ran ahead, and surprised him, and he really didn’t have any reason to be surprised that he was going to have to pay with his life. He knew Minos would have to pay with his as well, but… Wasn’t there something he could do?</p><p>        	Wasn’t there anything but death ahead of them? It was a Saint’s job to save people, and it wasn’t their place to judge those people and refuse to save them. He could wish, ever so briefly, that he could claim ignorance. That he could say he was only doing his job.</p><p>        	He’d proven his own guilt when they’d ran the first time. There wasn’t any way around the guillotine now.</p><p>        	Minos shifted beside him, and sat up, his eyes still closed. “Siren?” he whispered, his voice still heavy with sleep. “That you…?”</p><p>        	“I’m here,” Albafica answered, slipping his hands into those of his lover’s, instinctually leaning into him, trying to ignore the way the moonlight made flowers of the bruises on his pale skin. They would be beautiful if they weren’t simply pools of blood within soft flesh. The only bruises Minos was allowed to have were ones he inflicted, and these weren’t that. These were the marks that branded them both as the enemy, and a thin ribbon of fear slipped into Albafica’s chest, joining the cat’s cradle of the other ones, only adding to his numbness.</p><p>        	Minos blinked awake, those soft lavender eyes like a field of flowers that wouldn’t hurt anyone, the kind you could toss yourself in and laugh at the butterflies above in a misty morning. He would have drowned in those eyes. He was still drowning, come to think of it. The moonlight only made them sweeter.</p><p>        	His lips found Minos’ and Minos tilted them back, pulling Albafica onto the bed and onto his chest, a hand snaking into locks of hair and pulling him close. Albafica kissed him back with equal passion, wishing that they could be anywhere but here, maybe in that lavender field of dreams that he’d only found the key to in Minos’ eyes.</p><p>        	He wanted to hate himself for this, wanted to dislike the touch like silk as Minos’ free hand found the hem of his shirt at his hip and slipped lower, caressing the beginning of his inner thigh and shifting somewhere… else. Albafica let out a gasp into the kiss, breaking it for a breath’s length and pushing his tongue roughly between Minos’ lips.</p><p>        	He wanted to hate himself for this, knowing full well it was a crime, the knowledge that this was forbidden in every way sinking into him, and yet, he was still beyond it, still in a numb calm tinged with the pleasure and the boy before him bathed in moonlight and bruises like flowers across his skin. And yet, all he wanted was more of him.</p><p>        	He found his lips shifting lower, shifting down the soft part of his neck, his shoulder, his collar, and so much lower. Minos threw his head back with a silent, gasping wail of pleasure. Albafica’s fingers found his spine and slipped lower, drifting past his tailbone, the soft ridges a hymn to gods that no longer believed in either one of them. His skin was sweet to the touch and more to the lips, and perhaps how forbidden it was made it sweeter, made him an even more wondrous treat.</p><p>        	It didn’t quite help that Minos had done what so many others had refused to even consider. It was strange, really… But ah, his fingers found the soft part of Minos’ back and slipped into him, and he thought of little more, even the throbbing in the back of his calf suddenly nonexistent. Minos moaned something silent, his whispers wordless and wanting.</p><p>        	Some untold time later, measured only by the shifting of the moonlight through their window, Minos clung to him still, wings half-spread below him, breathless and grinning, like they had found Elysium here, in this drafty and abandoned tower room in someone’s winter fortress, and for a moment, all they could do was grin at each other, flustered, pretending for the moment that neither of them were doing anything wrong by being here.</p><p>        	Minos pulled him closer, hands on his ribs, fingertips already finding the places they’d already bruised within the hour. “My siren,” he half-purred, offering him a lopsided grin before he buried his face into Albafica’s shoulder, clinging, like this was their last night together, and it was, and they both knew that.</p><p>        	Albafica moved closer. He couldn’t do anything else but move closer to him, pressing his face into the shorter locks of damp white hair, pressing kisses to the crown of his head, murmuring reassurances they both knew he was lying about. It wasn’t going to be okay. It hadn’t been okay, either – and it would never be. They were damned the moment he had decided to spare Minos’ life, in acknowledgement of his crimes.</p><p>        	He only really wished for the capability to even want it any other way. They were going to die. It didn’t mean he regretted a single bit of it. He didn’t.</p><p>        	He leaned in, breathing in that lightning-studded scent, tangling one hand in Minos’ hair as they collapsed back into the bed, Albafica shielding Minos with his torso, intent on protecting him until the end.</p><p>        	It was a Saint’s duty to protect those that couldn’t protect themselves. And really, at the moment, he knew Minos wouldn’t be able to save himself without a lot of help.</p><p>        	“You are divine, my siren, were you aware?” Minos breathed into his shoulder. He could feel his fingertips pressing into his ribs, keeping him from shifting away, keeping him where he was more lost than ever, keeping him where he could still somehow be found.</p><p>        	“And you are twice as divine, for I’m not the son of the storm in this story,” he answered, finding the words easy to his lips. It was always Minos’ habit to talk like he was starring in a Shakespeare play, and after so long, he’d learned to talk back in the same way, all romance and flowery words. He pulled away, ever so briefly, to look down at his face. “That’s only my lover, who has hair like moonlight and looks like he needs another kiss.”</p><p>        	Minos blushed, but he acquiesced, allowing Albafica to kiss him soundly before he relaxed back in the bed. “We have to keep going, soon… The bells will give us an hour’s time more.”</p><p>        	“I know.” He knew he would never be able to sleep, even if he laid down and actually tried to. He wouldn’t be able to. At least this way…      	It would be cruel. Almost as cruel as that hunting horn that would sound when the sun broke free of the horizon. Their last light. He wanted to be kind, and yet… No, there wouldn’t be another way. He had learned that Saints were as cruel as they were kind.</p><p>        	If he was brave enough, if he was willing. He could do it, and end it on his terms. Allow his own hand to be the one on the guillotine’s switch, go down with his dignity still intact.</p><p>        	At least this way, he could turn his cruelty into the ultimate kindness. </p>
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